


Creatures of the Light, Run From the Night

by VesperRiver



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Angst, Blood, Body Horror, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Crying, Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, Established Relationship, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Robots, Slight Religious Themes, Temporary Character Death, The Adventure Bang 2019, Touch-Starved, Transformation, Vomiting, the light fucks everyone up basically? kinda, we know nothing abt the light yall
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2020-11-25 17:16:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20915705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VesperRiver/pseuds/VesperRiver
Summary: The Light Of Creation has always been one of a mystery. It has the power to create, that obvious. But what else does it do? No one knows.This is what the seven birds are trying to figure out, why it’s so important to the hunger? what is the extent of its abilities? What else can it do?These questions will be answered, but not in the way that either of them were expecting. The light of creation has its reasons for doing what it did. A reason that is not quite understood. But whatever it did? It was definitely not what they signed up for. Not even close.





	1. Prologue; The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> AA HI i cant believe its posting time already!!! ive been working on this fic for so long!! i have a decent backlog, but its nowhere near done at all. but this fic was the reason why i wasnt working on any of my other ones! anyways!! ill be updating once a week maybe? i loved writing this fic too, its been super fun to explore this concept!!! i hope you enjoy!!

The Light Of Creation has always been one of a mystery. It has the power to create, that obvious. But what else does it do? No one knows.

This is what the seven birds are trying to figure out, why it’s so important to the hunger? what is the extent of its abilities? What else can it do?

These questions will be answered, but not in the way that either of them were expecting. The light of creation has its reasons for doing what it did. A reason that is not quite understood. But whatever it did? It was definitely not what they signed up for. Not even close.

It started out in minor details. The flowers in Merle’s beard never fell out and instead stayed firmly rooted in place in the tangle. Whenever Lup entered a room, the temperature rose slightly. Lucretia seemed to have an aura of eeriness around her. 

But then it started to get more noticeable. The transformation into these creatures begins now, one by one. Not terrible ones, nowhere near it. a being made out of pure crystal, one made entirely out of malleable metal, a ghostly spirit, one made out of vines and flowers, a fully functioning robot without limitations, a being of magma with features of a phoenix and the zombie-like man. 

This is how it all happened. This is that story. A story with love and loss and pain and everything in between. It’s the same story we all know and love but with a different twist. 

The light of creation? Turns out it can do more than just create things. It can transform you. Why? Guess we’ll have to find out.

It started with Taako; he was the one to be around it last, to put it in its case for safekeeping. Though when he went to bed that night, a dull ache began to spread by his left ear. But Taako just assumes that he spent too much time leaning over the light in the lab, studying it. But the pain didn’t go away as he slept.

When he wakes up the next morning, after tossing and turning to get comfortable. it hurts even more. Assuming he slept oddly, or even that he had somehow gotten injured while collecting the light. But that’s impossible. This is a peaceful plane with only the most basic magic.

So as he enters his bathroom in the morning a glint of something purple and shiny catches his eye as he walks by the mirror.

Taako pauses, his eyes widen as he sees the strip of purple crystal starting at the base of his left ear and down his cheek.

This crystal, whatever it is, was not there last night. Nor was it of his own doing. He’s much more careful than that. he knows better than that.

In a panic, Taako tries to remove it. Scratching at the skin, around the crystal but to no avail. It’s stuck. he’s bleeding. 

The elf braces himself against the sink and stares at his bloody hands. A lump forms in his throat as he tries to steady his breathing.

He needs to get this off his face. He needs to get to Merle. He needs to know what’s happening.

That lump in his throat bubbles up and he chokes back a sob, he’s afraid. Afraid of what will become of him.

_ Everything is alright _ . He hears a small voice in the back of his head say.

No, no, it’s not. Nothing is fine. He’s not alright.

A knock at his door startles Taako out of his thoughts. 

“Koko?” He hears Lup say, “Are you okay?” Her voice a comfort to him.

He wants to lie but can’t. He can’t lie to his sister about this. Lup knows when Taako is not fine.

Steadily, but shakily, he pushes himself off of his sink. “N-no,” He sobs, reaching for the bathroom door with a bloody hand. his cheek throbs in pain

“I’m coming in,” Lup says, panic rising in her voice. 

He just stands in the bathroom's doorway as his twin bursts through the door. His eyes squeezed shut as she does so. 

“Taako.” Lup gasps

“I don’t know.” He opens his eyes and sees the panic and shock written on her face.

“You’re bleeding, Taako, what’s on your face? What happened?” His sister grabs his wrists, staring at all the blood on his hands

“I don’t know.” He repeats. “I need Merle.” He says softly through his tears.

“Right. Yeah. Fuck.” She drags him through the door of his room and yells for the dwarven cleric.

The dwarf stumbles out his room sleepily and yawns, “what? It’s too early for this shit.” He looks up at the two and his eyes widen, “what the hell?” The dwarf says. “The fuck happened, kid?” 

“I don’t know.” He sobs.

“Looks like you got into a fight, but come here.” He motions him to come closer. “I’ll heal you right up.” 

He leans down to the dwarf’s level and even though he teases Merle endlessly for not being a good cleric, he’d trust him with his life. 

The blood stops flowing and the scratches he had made on the skin around the growing crystal heals, but… the crystal stays. 

“Pan, what’d you do?”

“I-I didn’t do anything.” he sniffles. “I woke up, and it was there.” 

“Well clearly. Let’s get you to the infirmary. Was there any pain last night?” Merle ducks into his room for a moment to grab a cloth for Taako to press against the wound.

“It just ached a little, I thought I just leaned down too much yesterday. I was looking at the light.” 

“And you did nothing about it?” Merle shakes his head with a sigh, “you’re killin’ me, kid.” 

“I thought that was the hungry boy’s job?” Lup teases 

“Oh shut up,” Merle grumbles but smiles anyways.

Once they enter the infirmary, Merle has Taako move the cloth away. The wound that he had done to himself had mostly stopped bleeding now, but it revealed the growing crystal on the side of his head. 

“Damn.” the dwarf whistles, “are you sure you didn’t fuck anything up? Or you didn’t like, lick the light?” he says as he prepares to cast a healing spell. 

“Who do you think I am? Licking things that you aren’t supposed is more of a Magnus thing to do.” Taako says nervously, with a hint of laughter at the things his boyfriend has done, “I would’ve known if I fucked up on transmuting anything, I’m literally the best transmutation wizard out there. Its… it’s impossible that I would ever fuck up.” he stutters. 

“I know, I know. I never said I doubted your transmutation skills.” merle casts the spell, but only the broken skin around the crystal was healed. “Huh. well shit.” 

Taako grips the edge of the bed, “what?” he asks, eyes widening. “Shit what?” the elf winces as the crystal grows ever so slightly along his neck.

“Merle…” Lup starts to say, grabbing the dwarfs shoulder

“I know. I saw.” he grumbles, shrugging her off “I’m going to try to detect some magic.” 

Taako tenses, squeezing his eyes shut again and waits for Merle to confirm if this - whatever is happening to him - is magical or not.

“I-i can’t detect anything.” his friend and sort of father figure say after a quiet moment.

“Bull shit.” his twin says as calmly as possible, “bull fucking shit.” 

“I’m doing my best Lup, does this plane have its own magic?” 

“Yeah, but it’s only simple cantrips compared to what we can do.” 

Merle hums, “might have to do more research on that. Check out The Light again too.” 

“I think we’ve done all the research we can on the light, Merle, what else could we possibly find?” Lup leans against Taako in comfort.

“I don’t know. But it couldn’t help but to try?” he suggests, ‘’ I’ll continue to try to figure out what’s happening with him.” 

Lup exhales, “Okay, thank you.” she smiles wearily, “love you Ko,” she kisses his forehead. 

“Ditto,” he whispers and watches her leave, although hesitantly. 

Lup is about ready to break down into tears. She’s afraid. Afraid for her brother, afraid for what the rest of this cycle is going to be like. 49 years of running and resetting and nothing like this has happened before. She doesn’t even know what she’s going to do if… if he fully turns. 

This plane has people on it, though their magic is weak. It would take a powerful spell for this to have happened to Taako. 

The elf finds herself back at the door to her shared room with Barry and Lucretia and sighs deeply. She opens it slowly and the two don’t seem the miss her during her absence. A wave of exhaustion courses through her body and Lup squeezes herself between her partners. They re-adjust for her presence once again making itself known. 

“Mm, where’d you go?” Lucretia asks sleepily, placing her chin on Lup’s shoulder. 

“I- I was checking on Taako,” she whispers.

“Is he okay?” Barry slurs, squinting at the two of them through sleepy eyes. 

“I don’t know.” She sniffles and buried her face into her boyfriend’s chest. 

“What’s going on?” Lucretia asks.

“There’s this crystal stuff growing on his face and I don’t know how or why. He said he didn’t fuck up on transmuting anything and I believe him but I’m… I’m afraid.” Lup says and breaks down into tears.

“Crystal stuff?” Barry asks and reaches over to grab his glasses off of the nightstand, “was that what that yelling was about?” 

“I’m sure he’ll be fine, have faith in Merle,” Lucretia reassures.

“No, but when he healed him, the crystal was still there. He didn’t detect any magic or anything either.” 

“No magic?” Barry makes a noise of confusion, “that’s not good.”

“Yeah no shit, Barry.”

“I’m… not that good at comforting stuff yet. Sorry.” 

“It’s okay, I’m just… afraid.”

“I would be too.” Lucretia says and kisses the base of Lup’s ear, “this plane has very weak magic. There’s been no hostility towards us so it couldn’t have been from the people here.” 

Lup is silent, “then what would it be?” She asks quietly

“A curse? Sorry, that’s probably worse.” Barry apologizes.

Lup detangles herself from her partners and stands up. “I’m going to make breakfast. I- I gotta try to get my mind off all of this. You did nothing wrong. Fuck… it grew” 

Lucretia stumbles out of bed and wraps her arms around her girlfriend’s waist again in a quick hug, “it’s okay.” 

“It’s not. I’ve lost him before but I think this... this will probably the worst be the worst.” she says and moves towards the doorway, “If you want to help me, I’ll be in the kitchen.” 

She wanders through the halls of the ship towards the kitchen. Fighting away that feeling of dread that had infected her thoughts any more than they already had. 

He’s going to be fine, she thinks to herself as she begins to prepare breakfast for the crew.

Putting herself on autopilot, she only focuses on what she’s making at the moment. Or she tries, Lup can’t stop thinking about the fate of her brother. 

She was fine the three other times her twin had died, and she didn’t. Well, mostly. But this? This is going to be hell. 

There was that one cycle where he had gotten incredibly sick from a highly contagious disease that plagued the plane. He had fallen fast; it was too late for the cure to work. Taako had died within the week. 

But this crystal stuff? That’s new, something that they had never experienced before. Who knows how long it’ll take this time.

It’s growing, slowly and surely, it will take over his entire body. Lup is afraid of the day that it’ll happen. 

Unless the crew finds something to reverse it. 

“Lup? What’s going on?” Magnus says, bringing her out of her thoughts. “Wheres Taako?” he says in a panic

She looks up at the fighter and he looks afraid.

“There was blood on the sink in his room and I want to know if he’s okay.” 

“I- Magnus. I don’t know. I don’t know if he’s okay.” Lup admits

“Lup. what’s going on?” he gives her a serious look. “You’re scaring me. Please, please tell me that my boyfriend’s okay.” his voice cracks

It had slipped her mind that Magnus usually checks on Taako in the mornings after his workouts. She should’ve gone to Magnus first. “There’s… there’s this crystal stuff on him. It’s growing and we don’t know where it’s from.” 

“What do you mean? I don’t know any of this magic stuff.” the fighter frowns and leans against the counter. 

“It’s not magic.” 

“What else could it be if it’s not magic?” 

“I don’t know. Look, uh this is almost done so if you could go down to the infirmary and deliver it to Merle and Taako?” she tries to change the subject away from her brother. 

“Lup, I’m sorry for pushing you on this, but how?”

“Again, I don’t know,” she says forcefully. “I don’t know what's going on! Nobody does, Magnus!” 

The fighter raises his hands in mock surrender, “I didn’t mean to upset you,” he grabs the plates she prepared.

“It’s fine, I didn’t mean to yell either.” 

“It’s a stressful time.” 

“Sure fucking is.” the elf sighs. 

Magnus walks down the hallway towards the infirmary, afraid of what has happened to his boyfriend. He’s not paying much attention because he ends up almost running into Davenport, somehow, even with his short stature.

“Sorry cap, uh, Lup told me to go deliver food to Taako and Merle in the infirmary,” he says and watches as a look of confusion forms on the gnome's face.

“What?” he asks plainly

“I don’t really know what’s happening besides that Taako has some sort of crystal growing on him and I’m scared to be honest with you,” Magnus says awkwardly.

Davenport just stares up at him in disbelief. “What?” he repeats, "I thought this plane’s magic wasn’t strong enough for something like that to happen.” 

“I mean, I’m the only non-magic user here so I really can’t comment on that.” he walks towards the infirmary again. Leaving Davenport to figure out what the fuck is going on his own.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucretia discovers, the crystal grows, davenport has concerns, questions go unanswered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i said i would post weekly but i got impatient lol. my favorite part of this chapter was the interaction with davenport and taako
> 
> enjoy!

Magnus doesn’t know what to expect when he gets there. All he knows is that his boyfriend is hurt in some magical way and he can’t do anything to fix it. Well, for now anyway. He hopes that there will be a way to do so. 

Merle looks up at him with a soft expression, “Hey kid,” he smiles.

“I brought breakfast.” 

“Thank Pan, I’m starving.” Merle follows his gaze to the passed out Taako on the bed, or more directly at the crystal growing on him. “I had to use a sleep spell on him because he wouldn’t stop flipping his shit,” he explains. 

“Oh,” he hands Merle the plate. Guess he didn’t need to bring Taako a plate after all? He sets it down on the stand next to the bed though, just in case if he’s hungry when he wakes up. 

“There’s nothing wrong with his vitals, everything seems to be fine. Well, except the blood part, but uh... don’t know what’s up with that.” 

“Blood? What do you mean?” Magnus felt a pang of panic rise in his chest. 

“It looks fine looking at it normally, but under the microscope, there’s like a bunch of little sparkly bits that really aren’t supposed to be there.” Merle explains, “I don’t know what it is yet, but I do know that it’s not good.”

Magnus doesn’t really know how to react to that, “do we even know what kind of magic is in this plane?”

“Just like the basic cantrips and shit, which really don’t have the power to do that.” the dwarf says and pats the fighter’s leg. “We can still cast higher than a cantrip, of course. But this plane has not developed enough to get anything more powerful for the people who live here.” 

He nods, pretending to know what the fuck Merle is saying. He knows about magic but now how it works. He just hits stuff. “Do you know what we can do?”

“Besides wait? Not really?”

“Don’t you think we can ask around? See if they know anything about suddenly turning into crystal?” 

“We could. That’d be a good place to start.” 

~

Lucretia watches as Taako stirs awake, he had been out for the last hour or two. She was tasked with watching and waiting for him to wake up as the other five went out and asked around the local villages about the chances of someone suddenly turning into crystal. 

The human had looked at the blood sample that Merle had taken. The sparkly bits? Some of them suspiciously look like the Light. The rest? She doesn’t exactly know. 

The crystal growing on Taako has spread. It’s now halfway up his left ear, down his neck and across most of his cheek. Seeing the rate it’s spreading at, Lucretia has a bad feeling that it will only be a week or two until he’s fully covered. 

Taako makes a small noise as he finally wakes up, he puts a hand up to his face and looks up to Lucretia in fear. “It wasn’t a dream was it?”

“Fraid not,” she says and taps her pen on the paper of her journal. 

“Do you know why this is happening? Or how?”

“Not exactly, but I have a theory.” she stands up, sets her journal down onto the chair she was sitting on, “Merle had taken a sample of your blood, he had said there were sparkly bits in it. I looked at it too, just to confirm. Would you like to know what I found? Not trying to scare you or anything.”

Taako stares at her for a moment, then nods. Not saying a word

“I saw the light. Small pieces of course.” the woman explains, “were you, by any chance, bleeding around the light when you retrieved it?”

“I- no? Not that I know of?” He says bewildered. “Are- are you telling me that the light did this to me?”

“I didn’t say that. But potentially, I haven’t had the chance to share my theory with the others since they’re asking around about the spontaneous happenings of someone turning into crystal for no reason. But anyway, sorry if that isn’t something you wanted to wake up to. I just really wanted to finally tell someone about it.”

“It’s cool, better than just sitting here in awkward silence.” he winces as the crystal continues to grow, “or alone really. Y’know, I think you’ve grown a lot since the start of this shitty ass journey.”

Lucretia sits back down and writes something down into her journal with a smile. “Well, you can thank your sister for that. But watching her pine after Barry was literal hell. So glad I convinced her to duet with him.”

“Oh gods yeah, so glad you did. I also may have pushed it a little. How’s it going with you three by the way?” he asks and tries to sit up, but it only made the area around the crystal ache a lot more so he just stays where he is

“Oh, we’re good! Still trying to figure everything out. Only been a thing for a year, so y’know.” 

Lup then comes into the room, not really looking the happiest herself.

“Hey, how’d it go?” Lucretia asks with a small smile.

“Not that great,” she comes over and takes Lucretia’s hand, “they don’t know anything.” Lup smiles down at her twin, “how’re you doing Koko?”

“Doing as good as someone who’s turning into crystal can be,” he responds with a thumbs up.

“Oh! Now that you guys are back, I can tell you what I found?” the human woman says and looks up at her girlfriend. “Could you call the others in with the intercom?” 

Lup raises an eyebrow, “you… actually found something?” she asks, a hint of anxiety in her voice. 

“Yeah, I’m assuming.” 

She gets up and goes to the intercom, “hey could you come to the infirmary, Lucretia had said she found something?” 

Not long later, the rest of the crew had filtered into the infirmary. Davenport motions for Lucretia to explain.

“So Merle let me look at the sample he’d taken of Taako’s blood because he mentioned there were sparkly bits in it right? I looked at it through a higher resolution because it didn’t look like it was only just the crystals in his blood.“Lucretia double-checks the microscope again to see if her findings were right, “I saw the light. I don’t know how or why, but it looks like there’s a shit-ton of microscopic specs of The Light floating around in his bloodstream. So I have a theory that the light is involved in a way somehow.” 

Davenport comes over and looks through the microscope himself, Lucretia fidgets slightly as he does so, he makes a noise of interest as he looks away. “Well clearly, we don’t know as much as we thought we did about The Light. Is there even anything else to learn about it?” he asks

“We did as much as we could when we were first observing it, Cap. We know that it is incredibly influential. It allowed the animals in the first plane to become much more advanced. It’s what makes The Hunger come after us time and time again at the end of every cycle.” Barry pauses, “what would it possibly gain from turning Taako into crystal?” 

“We have no idea, that’s the problem,” Lup says glancing at her brother.

“I think we should do more research. Look through all the previous discoveries before we jump to a conclusion.” Barry says as he looks through the microscope as well, “maybe there’s something we haven’t found out about it yet.”

“Aside from that, it’s extremely cravable?” Magnus speaks up, “every time we try to get it when it’s protected by someone or something, it’s influenced by it.”

“It’s talking to me.” Taako interrupts, “it’s telling me things that I can’t understand.”

“Are you sure? You might be dehydrated.” Merle grabs a plastic cup and fills it with water, “drink.”

“I might. But it’s telling me I’ll be fine, I’ll be protected.” He takes a sip of water and winces as the crystal grows down towards his chin. “It says it can’t explain why. It needs to protect us.”

“Protect us from what?” 

“I don’t know. It won’t say.”

~

Days later, there is no answer. The Light isn’t giving them any answers. Taako is starting to resign to his fate of turning into crystal and the high possibility of him dying.

It’s night now, though, and Taako had managed to sneak out of the infirmary. It was slightly challenging and painful, but he managed. 

The crystal was now covering half of his face, down some of his left arm, his chest and to his hip. Making it incredibly hard to move. 

But all he wanted a breath of fresh air. The sterile air and the unwelcoming environment of the infirmary combined with memories of some pretty shitty deaths was really starting to get to him. 

“Taako,” Davenport says sternly, interrupting his peace. “What’re you doing out here?”

“I needed fresh air, get off my dick. Couldn’t sleep either.” 

_ You shouldn’t talk to your captain like that. _ The Light says in the very back of his mind. 

He ignores it and turns to look down at the ground passing by far below. “Getting tired of being in the infirmary. It was driving me crazy, can I just spend the rest of my days in my room?”

Davenport sighs, “yeah, you can.” the gnome joins him at the railing.

“I’m scared.” Taako admits, “of what’s going to happen to me.”

His Captain looks up at him, “I would be too if I were in your position.”

“I’m surprised you’re not scolding me for being out here. Or questioning how I even managed to do it. It was very painful by the way.” 

Davenport smiles, “do you want me to scold you? I’d be very happy to do so.” He jokes

“Oh, gods please don’t.” Taako returns the smile, “I’m starting to accept that this is my fate for the cycle. Turning into crystal.” He turns away from the railing.

“We’re heading towards another village, they might know-“ Davenport starts to say before Taako interrupts him.

“But what if they don’t. As far as we know, the light is in my blood, it’s the cause of what’s happening to me.” He says

“Yes, but we want to make sure.” 

_ They won’t. _ The Light whispers again

“They won’t.” Taako repeats what the light said, “no one will know. It’s the light, Davenport. It talks to me, it told me they won’t know. There’s nothing else you can do, the magic in this cycle is nowhere near the level we are.”

“Taako.” He scolds, but sighs, “we know that the light is in your blood. But we- I just want to make sure you aren’t cursed.”

You aren’t. This is for your own protection. You will be fine. It whispers again. 

He decides not to repeat what the light had just told him. The elf winces as the crystal on his body spreads more. His whole body aches and he feels like he’s going to collapse.

“Taako? Do you need to lie down?” 

“I want to go to my room.” He grits his teeth as it grows more. Moving apparently makes it spread more.

“Okay.” Davenport nods as he takes his uncrystallized hand and ghosts the other one against the small of his back. “Careful.”

“Do you have a sleep spell?” He asks, his head pounding with every movement he makes. It doesn’t help that the crystal has now covered his left eye. 

“Yes, I’m pretty sure I do,” Davenport says with worry in his voice.

He feels like his brain is going to explode. Maybe getting up and moving around was not the best idea after all. But he needed fresh air, could you blame him?

As soon as he reaches his bed, he finally collapses. It’s like a huge relief. The pain fades slightly, but it’s still there. He can barely hear his captain say the incantation for sleep as his head pounds and the crystal spreads.

Davenport watches Taako fall into a deep sleep after the spell is complete and cringes as the crystal grows rapidly on his body. All the way across his chest and down his left leg. The crystal is beautiful, but it's… horrifying to say the least.

Watching it grow on someone you consider a friend, family - perhaps even a son - is horrible. 

The gnome doesn’t know what to do. Clearly, moving around makes it worse. So Taako will be restricted to his bed which he doesn’t think will be much of an issue. 

He and the others have been working so hard into finding answers as to why, but no luck. The light is a mysterious thing after all. 

He takes one last look at the sleeping form of the elf and heads back out onto the deck and falls to his knees. Letting the tears that he’s been holding in fall. 

Then for the first time in years, and not exactly being the most religious type of person he prays, to pan mostly. He can blame Merle for that, or to any god in this damn cycle that will listen to him. For Taako, for him to be fine, for the crystal to stop growing and for his life to be spared. Just anything. 

He wipes his face and looks up at the stars; he hopes that someone is watching. Anyone, so that his prayers are answered. So he can get answers. 

But he won’t. The prayers won’t. There are no answers. Not even the gods know what’s happening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> follow me on tumblr! im keplered!


	3. Finality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lup and Magnus let off some steam, Barry and Lucretia watch over Taako, and as for Taako? well it looks like hes fully embraced his fate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yo!! posting this chapter Now so i can post chapter 4 Later or possibly tomorrow. THEN I WILL GO TO WEEKLY I PROMISE JHGDK
> 
> i wrote a good portion of this chapter in a journal when i had a power outage over the summer lmao

Lup is exhausted, stressed and fucking pissed. The past few days she’s been trying to dig deeper into the light, further than they’ve already dug in the past 49 years they’ve been doing this. In the cycles where they’ve found the light of course. But no luck so far, she’s unable to find anything new. 

She can’t fucking find anything. Not even Barry can, well not what they’ve already found out. 

No matter how hard they dig deep into the inner machinations of the light, it always seems like something is preventing them from doing so.

It’s frustrating, especially now, it’s like there’s somebody out there who doesn’t want them to know. Making this a pain in the ass to figure out.

That may be a possibility but whoever the fuck is doing it will get an ass-kicking from Lup as soon as she finds out how and who. 

But that can wait, sort of. Not really. It can’t wait. Because Taako is running out of time. It won’t be long until he’s fully crystalized

That little escapade he took out onto the deck of the ship the other night? It only made it spread more. All that moving around he did only made it worse for himself. It has completely devastated Magnus because now he has less time to spend with his boyfriend before his time is up. 

It goes for Lup, too. Even though they’re only halfway through the cycle now, it’ll still be too long for them to wait until he’s back.

Honestly, she can’t imagine how Magnus is feeling about all of this. But Lup? She hates it. A lot. The elf wanders the ships as she tries to cool down from the frustration she feels at the moment. She could just scream at the top of her lungs on the deck of the ship or beat up some of Mangus’s training dummies. Or set some random shit on fire. 

Anything to get her mind off of this.

“Lup?” she hears Magnus say, pulling her out of her thoughts. Speak of the devil. “Want- want to go for a walk or something?” he asks sheepishly. Lup is quick to notice that he looks so, so tired. 

“Yeah.” she smiles, “I think a walk would be good for both of us.” 

Magnus returns that smile. But it doesn’t reach his eyes like his signature smiles usually do. But in this situation? It’s understandable.

“How… how are you doing with all of this?” she asks, though she can already guess the answer.

“I don’t- I don’t know. It’s just so fucking bad Lup.” the fighter says, focused on the ground in front of him. His fists clenched as he holds back tears that threatened to fall. 

Gods. it’s just so easy to forget that Magnus was just a kid, barely even an adult, when the mission first started. So was Lucretia. This isn’t anything anyone should go through.

“He was in so much pain when he woke up again, I just couldn’t handle it.” 

Lup winces, “where’s it spread to now?” 

“Half of his face, most of his chest, left arm,” he pauses, “just basically his entire left side now.” 

The elven woman nods with a frown on her face, “I’m not finding anything new with The Light either. No matter how hard I try? There’s always something preventing me, somehow, from going deeper.”

Magnus gives her a confused look, “what do you mean? This is like some magical bullshit right?”

“I mean probably?” she shrugs. “But fantasy Jesus Christ, it’s so fucking frustrating!” 

“Everything about this is, in a way. I just want him to be fine and back to normal.” he sniffs, “did it feel this bad when he caught that plague back in 14?” a tear glistens in his eye when he turns to look at her.

“I-I don’t know, I’d say this feels worse, so much worse.” she rubbed his shoulder in an attempt of reassurance, but finds herself tearing up too. “Because that time? I didn’t have to see him suffer for very long?” Lup holds back a sob.

Magnus nods, now tears are streaming down his face. “We’ll- we’ll get through this,” he says with the most sincere voice he can muster.

“Don’t we always?” she says with a watery laugh.

“The best we can.”

Lup looks away and up towards the sky through her tears. The sun has begun to set, bathing the sky in a beautiful pinkish purple. It reminds her of home. The sunsets were amazingly beautiful back home, but these are enough to rival. “I guess… this walk wasn’t as relaxing as you would have hoped?”

“No, not exactly.” he chuckles slightly, “but it got us away from the ship.” he wipes his nose with his sleeve. 

The duo walk more in silence, enjoying the silence and scenery. Soon, they reach a clearing with a lake. The sunset reflects off of the still waters and luckily, there isn’t anyone around. It’s a good distance from the ship. So she lets out a scream, accidentally startling Magnus next to her who grins and follows her example. 

They take turns screaming a few more times before heading back to the ship, seeing as the sun has gotten lower in the sky and it will be night soon. She hopes that their screaming didn’t raise any alarms from any nearby villages from all of their yelling. 

“I should take Lucretia and Barry to that lake,” she hums, “Luce would love it.” 

“She would,” Magnus says with a small smile.

~

It hasn’t been long since Taako had woken back up again after he was put under another sleep spell, waking up from this one isn’t as painful as the last time. Lup and Magnus have returned from their walk to blow off steam in the training room. Leaving Lucretia and Barry to watch over Taako. 

Not that he minds or anything, he gets to spend time with one of his girlfriends. One he hasn’t had the opportunity to have enough alone time with. If you could call this alone time. 

But Lucretia has been writing furiously in her journal about all the events that have transpired the past few days, even with one hand. 

Moving to another page, she begins to sketch the mostly crystallized form of Taako. He’s impressed. He wishes he could draw that good.

Taako lets out a pained noise, breaking the silence that was hanging in the room. Making Lucretia look up with a look of concern. 

He’s getting closer and closer to being fully crystallized now. Even with the process slowed significantly with him being restricted to his bed. Not like he has a choice in the matter. 

The human woman gives him a look of concern, “won’t be long now.” she whispers and chews on her bottom lip. 

“Y-yeah,” he whispers back, wrapping an arm around her waist, “should- should we call the others?” 

“I think we still have time, too early to tell how long it will take exactly.” 

“Love that you two lovebirds are talking about me like I’m not even here.” the elf speaks up through a pained voice, “really, how insensitive can you be?” he jokes.

“Sorry Taako, would… would you like to see my drawing?” she asks, almost hesitantly

“Hell yeah, show me.” he says with a smile, or the best smile he can do, “oh wow, that’s me ain’t it?” Taako goes silent. Barry realizes that Taako hasn’t looked at himself in a mirror in a while and doesn’t know what he looks like.

“Yeah, I shouldn’t have shown it to you, I’m sorry.” she shrinks into herself slightly.

“No, Creesh it was super good, I liked it,” he reassures sincerely.

“Yeah, it’s good,” Barry confirms and kisses the side of her head.

Lucretia smiles sheepishly, then continues working on her sketch. 

The room falls silent again before Taako speaks up again, “do- do you guys know what kind of gemstone slash crystal is covering me?”

“Nope, not a clue.” he shrugs, “that might be a question for Merle.”

“I mean, definitely amethyst, right? Not opaque enough.” the chronicler supplies, not looking up from her drawing, “there are also streaks of various shades of purple in it too.”

“Well, what other types of gems are purple?” the elf asks. 

“I can’t think of many off the top of my head.”

Taako then makes a pained noise again as the crystal spreads further down his leg and completely covers it. Now only a portion of his torso is uncovered and the rest of his face.

“Might be spreading faster than we thought,” he whispers to Lucretia again but disguises it as another kiss to her head.

She nods, jots something down in her journal, faster than Barry can process, then turns the page to a clean one and writes something else. She shows him the page which says ‘could be moving faster because talking could equal movement. Should call in the others when its spread over his torso.’

“So soon?” he asks in the most hushed whisper he can manage. “How long do you think he has now?”

She nods and scribbles something else down before presenting it to him again, ‘I don’t know. I hope he lasts through the night.’

The blue-jean clad man exhales sharply. Taako is approaching his end of the cycle rather quickly. But hopefully? Hopefully, he lasts until tomorrow. He has a feeling that Lucretia feels the same way.

~

It did, it held off, allowing Taako to make it through the night.

Last night felt excruciatingly long for Magnus. He could not stay asleep because he was worried about his boyfriend. The thoughts kept on swimming in his brain, making him toss and turn. Needless to say, he had gotten little to no sleep that night. Thoughts on when Taako was going to die.

That time was now, the moment the whole crew was dreading. 

Taako almost fully crystallizing.

His torso was covered entirely by the time Merle had come and checked on him that morning.

It was hard not to hear the panic written within the cleric’s voice as he announced over the intercom as the rest of the crew was eating breakfast.

The crystal had - albeit conveniently - only left a portion of Taako’s face uncovered by the time that everyone had filtered into the elf’s room

“I managed to calm him down with calm emotions, so that’s why he’s unnaturally calm,” Merle explains, giving the fighter a look of sympathy.

Magnus ignores the look the dwarf gave him and immediately moves to his boyfriend’s side, “Taako?” he whispers and feels a hand on his shoulder and immediately knows its Lup without even looking.

“Hey babe,” Taako says through a strained voice and a half-smile, “I guess it’s time, huh?”

The fighter nods, tears are already streaming down his face. He doesn’t want to lose his boyfriend this cycle. It isn’t fair. 

“Hey, don’t cry over me.” he says reassuringly, “I won’t be gone long, just a couple months. That goes for you too, lulu, don’t cry over me, okay?”

Lup lets out a sob, but nods as the crystal spreads over his remaining eye. 

“I- I love you Taako,” Magnus says through his tears

“Love you too, big guy,” the elf smiles, “how about one last kiss for me?” the crystal spreads over his remaining eye completely and he smiles. 

The fighter leans down and kisses his boyfriend for the last time this cycle. It takes some effort considering the crystal covering a good majority of his mouth. 

“Taako, I-I don’t know why we don’t say this more and only in situations like this but, I love you.” she lets out another sob, “promise me we will? I can’t- fuck!” she buries her face into Barry’s shoulder.

“I promise.” the crystal grows slightly. 

Now everyone in the room is crying. Surely, this is one of the worst deaths that has happened on this ship and in this damned journey. With how slow, yet so fast it had taken.

“And Lup?” he barely hears his boyfriend over his tears.

She makes a noise of acknowledgment, looking up from her boyfriend’s shoulder. 

“Love you too.” and with that, the crystal finally spreads over the rest of his mouth. 

The room goes silent, just for a moment, then Lup breaks down into tears again. Barry acts quickly and ushers her out of the room, his glasses clutched in his hand, not to get the tear stains on them, Lucretia follows closely behind them.

Magnus doesn’t move from his spot, he… he can’t bring himself to. 

“Kid?” Merle comes over to place a hand on the fighter’s leg, his worn copy of the bible of Pan is in the other. Right, they have to do that prayer thing. None of them are all that religious aside from Merle, but it’s become a sort of a tradition whenever someone dies. “Would you like to do the honors?” 

Davenport appears on his other side and the gnome takes the much larger hand of Magnus into his own.

The cleric directs him to the right page, he’s heard this same prayer many times before. He takes a deep breath and begins to recite. “Dearly beloved, we are here in honor of pan, who we are praying to today.” he wipes a tear away from his face before he continues.

~

“I love you too.” Taako says as the crystal covers his mouth completely and the dark purple world goes black.

_'This will only take a moment.' _ The Light says somewhere deep within his mind._ 'I just need to connect your new body to your mind_. ' 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the gemstone covering taako is charoite btw
> 
> follow my tumblr! its keplered!


	4. Wondering and Feeling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taako sees himself again and wonders what the fuck to do with himself now (among other things)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello hello its update time!!
> 
> okay first, this chapter has some utterly amazing art to go along with it!! which you can find [ here! ](https://thekingkez.tumblr.com/post/188301478201/im-still-me-he-says-reassuringly-again-i) its so good and i appreciate the artist, kez, who made it!! 
> 
> second!! so fucking excited for taz graduation!!
> 
> third, my friend used the taxes line when my other friend asked what he was doing in ceramics last year it was so fucking funny and i absolutely had to include it

When Taako regains consciousness, he hears the end of that Pan holy prayer for death or whatever. He hears how broken Magnus sounds and so desperately want to jump up and tell him it’s okay. He’s here, he’s not dead.

But he can’t move, everything is dark, and he can’t seem to form any words.

He lies there, waiting as it ends, hearing the voices of his boyfriend and crew-members break. It shatters his now metaphorical heart to many and tiny little pieces. Once again wishing that he could say something- anything, to reassure. 

_‘Sorry, you should be able to move now’_ The Light says, and he feels himself loosen. _‘didn’t want to ruin their moment.’_

Right. 

So Taako waits until Magnus, Davenport, and Merle have left his room. Until he can’t hear their footsteps anymore. 

_‘You should be good to move around now.’_ The Light supplies. 

Taako opens his eyes. Everything is a varying shade of purple, what else should he have expected? Then he sits up, it’s as fluid as when he was flesh. His movement does not seem to be restricted in this new form of his, from what he can tell right now, anyway. 

He swings his legs over the edge of the bed, his feet make small clinks when they come into contact with the hard floor of the ship. He doesn’t even need to breathe, but he makes a noise that resembles a sigh and stands up. 

The crystallized elf knows that he should be careful to not make any noticeable noise as he makes his way towards the bathroom. 

This will be the first time he has seen himself in the mirror since that morning. 

What he finds is interesting. 

For one thing, he no longer has any definable facial features. Just a pair of glowing orbs in the middle of his head. His head is surprisingly smooth but his ears? Deadly. 

There are spikes on his elbows and shoulders, both just as deadly. 

That rules out one thing: clothes. If he ever attempted to wear anything, the rough patches strewn out about his body would likely destroy it. But what he could wear is his hat, and maybe a scarf for some flair. 

Once again, he carefully makes his way back into his room and over to his closet where he pulls out his hat collection and the various scarves he’s collected over the years. He picks one out and places it on his head, then a somewhat matching scarf and wraps it around his shoulders, careful to mind the spikes and to not ruin the fabric.

_‘They are figuring out what to do with your body,’_ it says, _‘so far the winning idea is to give parts of you to the locals who need components or whatever reason they need it’_

Fantastic, they’re just going to give him away like some sort of illegal body part cartel? Like a necromancer giving their buddy a bone they stole off of a corpse?

Well, if he were dead, they would. Which he is not. 

But this heightens the need for him to let the rest of the crew know that he’s okay. 

_‘They will be leaving soon.’_ the light informs.

Time to come up with a plan. 

~

Hours later, the six remaining birds finally make their way back to the camouflaged starblaster, dejected and exhausted. None are particularly happy about their current situation, how could they be? They had attempted to barter off parts of their friend, brother, boyfriend, to random strangers who they thought would need crystals for whatever reason. Why did they think it would be a good idea?

But no one wanted any. Believing that they would catch whatever curse had caused this to happen and make them turn into crystal as well. 

It’s not hard to see who's taking this the hardest. Lup was uncharacteristically silent, not even saying a word. Magnus? He just looked broken, unsure of what to do next. But there are many ways to grieve. Davenport is sure that this crew has experienced them all. 

But once the six are on the ship, suspicions begin to arise, for there is a smell of something cooking from within the ship. 

“Could someone have gotten onto the ship somehow?” Merle asks as davenport holds his arm out, preventing anyone from going any further into investigate and shakes his head.

“Impossible. The cloaking system only allows us and anyone else who knows the location of the ship to see it. Why would someone break in just to make food? It- it wouldn’t make sense.” Barry says, a look of thought on his face.

“I swear I left nothing on,” Lup says, the first thing she’s spoken since the death of her brother.

“Well, we should at least go and investigate.”

“Good idea burnsides, you should go.”

“No, thanks.”

“We’ll all go,” Davenport says and lowers his arm and motions for the rest of the crew to follow him, all wands and focuses are raised and ready to cast. Though in Magnus’s case, his fists and ready to punch. 

Carefully and cautiously, the crew makes their way towards the kitchen where the smell is emanating from. Who would sneak onto a ship just to make food?

And finally, when davenport throws open the door, he’s met with a sight that he would never think he would see, and a person so familiar but not. Its Taako, standing at the stove, but it’s not Taako. Not the one he knew anyway, it’s the one he had thought to have died right in front of him, covered in crystal. 

He’s still covered in that crystal, but instead of being on his bed, he’s right there. “T- Taako?” he stutters in awe, “how? What are you doing?” the gnome asks as there’s a collective gasp as the rest of the crew enters the room themselves.

“My fantasy taxes? What does it look like I’m doing? I made food! Sorry for the death scare too, I thought I was a goner there.”

“Taako, what the fuck!” Lup yells, stomping her way over to him and wrapping him in a hug. Cold, hard, but welcoming and familiar. But when she pulls away, she looks as if she will cry again, but her face contorts into anger and she punches him square in the chest. Not too hard, but enough for it to hurt her. 

“Uh yeah I would advise not to do that,” he says, then feeling the gaze of everyone on him, it makes him uncomfortable. “Well uh, I made food? So are you going to get some or just keep on staring at me like that?” the crystallized being says, which seems to get the rest of the crew out of the stupor, “I also have no idea how it's tastes since I do not have a mouth to taste with either.

But Magnus stays where he is, he stares at his boyfriend; he thought he was gone for the rest of the cycle. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. “Taako..?” he wonders aloud, it feels like he’s going to ask him out all over again. But also not. There’s just a bunch of emotions rolling through his head and he doesn’t know if he can handle it.

Taako turns to him and his eyes are bright and he looks happy, though his ears fall and they dim as soon as he realizes what this means for them. “Guess we’ll have to talk about this, huh?”

“Y-yeah, probably. Though hopefully, you’ll be back to your normal fleshy self when the cycle resets.”

“Please never say that again.” he laughs, and it sounds like a chime, everything he says now sounds like it’s going through a filter. All crinkly and tinkly, it’s beautiful. “Now go eat your food so we can talk.”

Magnus nods and moves to serve himself a plate of food.

As it turns out, Magnus nearly fell asleep while he was eating. Today had been stressful and walking around for hours and interacting with people who really wanted nothing to do with him or his crew drained him. He totally didn’t pass out at the table either.

So he totally wasn’t surprised that he woke up in his own bed. Nope, not at all.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Taako says, his voice unfamiliar to him though it was all the same.

“So that wasn’t a dream huh?” he says after he turns over and looks at his boyfriend. Still fully crystallized.

“Fraid not, babe.” 

“Damn.” Magnus frowns.

“So… us.”

“Us.” 

“Yeah. do- do you think there’s a chance I won’t go back to my recorded form?”

“I don’t want that to happen.” Magnus says sitting up, “but back to what you wanted to talk about.”

“Gods I wish I could kiss you right now,” Taako says, his eyes morphing into what resembles a pout and his ears droop.

“I know, I feel the same way,” Magnus says and stares down at his bed.

“So,” the elf says, putting his hand on top of the fighters. He can’t feel a thing, if not just barely. “How are we going to do this for the rest of the cycle? Maybe for the rest of this damn trip if our luck is bad.” Taako ignores the light in the back of his mind, he wants to focus on his boyfriend. It wasn't saying anything interesting anyway.

“We-we’ll figure it out. We always do?” he says and leans forward to place a kiss onto Taako’s head and leans his forehead against the others. “We’ll find a way to make this work.”

~

When the hunger finally shows up, Taako watches from the deck of the ship. Gripping the railings as the inky black tendrils fall from the sky and hit the ground. Throwing up debris and shaking the ground. This would be the deciding moment. The moment when fate decides to put him back into his flesh body, his recorded state. Or right back into this one. 

Taako may or may not have already become touch starved after these short months of being completely crystallized.

He wants to feel something, kiss Magnus, smell the food he’s making. Taste it. Anything. 

He grips the railing as the ship lurches forward and upward suddenly, to avoid a new tendril landing nearby. 

_‘You’re on your own now’_ The Light had told him that morning, _‘good luck.’_

The elf didn’t want to know what that meant. It wasn’t reassuring at all. 

Taako braces himself, holding onto the railing as hard as he can as davenport directs the ship upwards and they ascend into the sky faster and faster, breaking through the prime material plane and then everything fades into that familiar white. 

When Taako reforms, he expects to be back into his fleshy self.

But he is not. 

He’s still made of crystal.

Everything is still that shade of purple. 

“This doesn’t make any sense at all!” Barry says, “could the light have affected his recorded state?” 

“Well, I’m assuming yes since that’s literally the only explanation that would make sense.” Lucretia says with a frown. 

“But I thought only sentient creatures, sorry Taako, who were small enough and bonded enough with us, who’s not a person, were able to make it through? Like fisher?” Merle says

“No, but that’s the thing. He’s sentient.” Lup says before Taako can say anything, “he’s the biggest thing that was able to get through, bigger than fisher that’s for sure. plus, he was already in the bond engine as a flesh person. The light must’ve adjusted his recorded form to compensate for this change, as a result for whatever it’s doing slash what it has planned.”

“Resulting in this new form of his to be permanent.” Barry grins at Lup with a loving grin, “but how did the light get into the bond engine?”

“We still don’t know that yet, seems like something that’ll be revealed in time.” 

“Great. Fantastic. I’m stuck like this forever.”

“Not forever, if there is a way to reverse The Light’s influence, we will,” Davenport says, patting his hip.

And with that, the crew disperses, leaving Taako to stew in his disappointment.

So he heads below deck, towards Lucretia’s room. It wouldn’t hurt to visit fisher.

It’s now been 50 whole years, 5 decades since all of this shit started. Boundaries have stopped being mandatory and are now more or less an option. Walking in on someone in the nude is more an inconvenience than an embarrassment now. 

He walks right in, luckily she’s not in here, and smiles softly at the voidfish in the tank who trills uncertainly at Taako.

“Hey, fish… it’s me. I’m different but I’m still Taako.” He says and walks closer, gently putting a hand on the tank, he’s been around the thing a few times. But more often than not, he was with Magnus. 

Fisher makes another uncertain noise and cautiously lifts his tendril to rest against the other side of the glass. “I’m still me.” He says reassuringly again, “I think we look a little bit alike now. We both have purple with other colors swirled in there, I guess.” The elf says with a chuckle and a shrug, “cya- cya later buddy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god nerfed me with a canker sore yesterday (which i found this out an hour or two ago!) and also not letting me buy some super cute shoes from platos closet when i went with my roommate earlier. i am very upset about this thing in particular.
> 
> anyways follow my tumblr! keplered!


	5. Worry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Davenport doesn't feel well, Merle has some words, Barry has something to do

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey uh quick warning, theres some brief descriptions of throwing up so if u have Emetophobia i suggest u skip from the beginning of the chapter to "Merle is worried." then i think youll be fine, please be careful i love u. davenport is fine i sWEAR
> 
> i shouldve posted this earlier but my executive dysfunction was kicking my ass so i apologize for that.

Davenport hasn’t felt well since they recovered the light. This plane has places where people are hostile to those they don’t know. The opposite of the last cycle. Making it a challenge to get it, but surprisingly, it went well.

His stomach churns as he directs the ship to somewhere they can land. They haven’t been able to since the start of the cycle, if not just temporarily. 

He tries to ignore the quickly oncoming nausea that’s been on and off since they had taken off with the light in their possession. 

A lump forms in his throat and the captain swallows it back down. Maybe he should’ve gone to Merle. 

He coughs, it hurts his chest, bringing his hand back, there’s blood on it.

He grimaces and swallows the bile back down, there’s a horrible taste in his mouth.

_'Hello, Davenport._' A voice rings in his mind. Was this how Taako felt? Was this the same voice he heard? He’s afraid.

The gnome coughs again, more blood splatters against his hand and against the central console. The feeling of queasiness strengthens, and he feels dizzy. 

This isn’t right. He was fine earlier. 

_'You’ll be fine, don’t worry,'_ The Light, he realizes quickly, tells him.

Of course, _of co_ _ urse _ _,_ it’s the light. What else would it be? They hadn’t been around any civilization long enough for any illness to happen. At least they know what to expect now, somewhat.

He stands up fast in a haze; the world goes blurry for a moment before the captain steps away from the control panel.

Unable to hold it down anymore, he throws up all over the floor. Bile and blood and the meal from that morning. 

His mouth tastes horrible, and there’s an intense pain abdomen as he takes a few steps forward, towards the door. He coughs again, each one bringing up more blood. 

Through his haze of pain, Davenport realizes he forgot to put the ship on autopilot. 

Bracing himself against the wall, he turns, in a panic. The world is spinning, he’s not going to make it. But surely one of his crewmates has noticed by now and are now their way up to help him. 

He takes a few labored breaths and pushes himself off the wall and tries to make his way back to the controls, but it’s a futile effort. He collapses almost immediately, coughing violently as even more rises to his throat.

_‘I really am sorry about this’_ The Light says again, but he can barely hear it through his haze of pain. 

Davenport manages to get to his feet again, though he doesn’t even make it a step before he collapses, hitting his head hard against the floor. The last thing he hears is the concerned voices of his crew.

~

Merle is worried. Why didn’t he tell him he wasn’t feeling well? He’d have to interrogate davenport later for his stubbornness. 

He can suspect that the light is the cause of this. He’s tried running vitals and giving him fluids but the fluids weren’t working. This isn’t some random ass sickness that came from this plane. They know this now, after everything that happened in the last cycle with Taako. It’s The Light. Calculated, artificial, and appearing deadly but not quite so.

The dwarf watches as more blood dribbles out of Davenport’s mouth, he should be dead by now. He’s lost so much that it’s practically impossible that he’s even alive, if not barely.

That would be, if this was a normal situation. Which this is very much not.

but it’s been hours since Lup and Lucretia found him passed out in a pool of his own blood, the ship had started its deadly journey downwards. Luckily enough, the two were close enough to prevent them from crashing and ending their journey right then and there. why did davenport decide that he was going to pilot the ship if he wasn’t feeling well? 

Merle can blame that on his stubbornness. but seriously, he had put the entire crews’ lives in danger. such recklessness had almost cost everyone their lives.

he definitely needs to interrogate his boyfriend to find out why and maybe do the scolding himself for once.

Merle lets out a sigh, takes davenports and into his and gently squeezes it. it’s cold and clammy. but not even a moment later, he feels the faintest squeeze back. which makes him feel a bit better.

Davenport makes a small, weak noise as he opens his eyes only to shut them again. he then coughs, hard, spitting up blood into his hand in the process before Merle gives him the bucket.

“Everything hurts,” he whines softly.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone you weren’t feeling good, Dav?” Merle asks, jumping right into his interrogation with a scold. “you put all of us in danger. you’re lucky Lup and Lucretia were close by and noticed something was wrong before we crashed.”

“‘m sorry,” he mumbles

“it’s all right, you just got to tell us when something is wrong. it’s been fifty years, babe. I know you trust at least one of us to fly this thing for ya.”

“I was feeling fine when we took off. then suddenly I was coughing up blood, and the light started whispering to me, I couldn’t think straight.” the gnome explains, regret written on his face and Merle can’t help but to feel bad. “I knew I had to get to you, but I was in a panic and didn’t realize I didn’t put the ship on autopilot until it was too late.” he opens his eyes again, briefly, before he shuts them again. Merle is unable to get a good look at them. 

“Are the lights hurting your eyes?” he asks worried, preparing to get up to turn them down.

“A little, but uh, my vision is weird.”

“What do you mean?” 

“I-I can’t explain it.” he opens his eyes briefly again, Merle can get a glance at them, but it’s not enough for him to know what’s going on. “Like, there’s all this technical shit?”

“Well, if you kept them open longer, I’ll to figure it out.”

“I don’t want to open them again. It scares me.” 

“We’ll never know until you do.”

Davenport violently coughs again, more blood spills out of his mouth and onto the pillow. Merle wasn’t fast enough to grab the bucket nearby. “Fine,” he says, begrudgingly and opens his eyes. 

His eyes are now a blue instead of their usual brown, they seem to have circuitry or something similar to that running through the irises. The dwarf doesn’t know much about mechanics or robots or anything. It very clearly isn’t normal. 

“The light’s doing this,” he says, confirming what Merle had thought before. 

He’s not a mechanic or anything, he’s a doctor (sort of) for fleshy humanoid people. So he can’t confirm what he’s looking at. “Yeah, I thought so. I know nothing about machines, so I’m going to call Barry in to see what he thinks?” 

Davenport nods and closes his eyes again, blood dribbling slightly from his mouth. 

Merle gets up and moves towards the intercom, giving his boyfriend a look of concern. Who knows what The Light will do this time? “Barry? Could you come to the infirmary, I have a question for you.” 

Not even a second later, the intercom crackles to life, “yeah, sure, be there in a second.” 

Merle had just sat back down when Barry enters the room, looking nervous, “what’s up?” he asks

“You know about machines and shit right?”

“Um. yes?” the human blinks, “why?” 

“Open your eyes again, Dav.”

Davenport makes a small noise in protest, but complies anyway, opening his eyes fully and glancing up at the two. 

“What does it look like to you?”

The bluejeans clad man makes a noise in confusion, “Kinda looks like circuitry? The Light right?” 

“Yeah.”

“Oh… that’s a lot of blood. Yikes.” he winces, noticing the bucket of blood and bile. “The Light must be sustaining you because you should not be alive right now.”

“I gathered.” the gnome says with a shrug. 

“You’re turning into something mechanical, that must be why you’re literally puking your guts out. It's probably making room for all the internal shit. I’m really interested in seeing where this is going, first, though, how are you feeling Dav?” he asks, making Merle realize he didn’t fucking ask that, and immediately feels bad for it. 

“Pretty shitty, everything hurts like hell.” 

“I expected that. Now I’m going to take a sample of your blood so I can run it under the microscope to see if it will give us hints into what’s happening to you like it did with Taako. Be right back, got to grab something to collect it with.” he says leaves the room to grab what he needs from the lab. 

“Sorry.”

“For what?”

“Not asking if you were okay, it slipped my mind because I was so concerned over the fact that you almost crashed the ship.”

Davenport stays silent for a moment, “it’s fine, I didn’t even realize it.” 

The room is silent for a moment, the only sound is the hum of the ship. Barry returns not long later, with all the supplies he needs for collecting a sample. 

He quickly scrapes a bit of blood off of the side of his captain’s mouth and putting it onto a slide, “I’ll let you know what I find. what do you see when you open your eyes, by the way?”

“i- I see what we get from the diagnostic scanner, I saw information about you, it was overwhelming.”

“All right cool, interesting, just wondering. let me know if you have questions,” he says

“Thank you, Barry, did I take you away from anything? Sorry if I did.” 

He grins, “you didn’t, actually.” he must’ve had one of those rare moments as to when he wasn’t hanging out with either of his girlfriends, “you gave me something to do, as a matter of fact.” 

“Glad I could help.” Merle smiles back as he leaves the infirmary, blood sample in hand.

“What do you think I’m turning into?” davenport asks, moments after Barry leaves. He sounds exhausted.

“I have no idea.” Merle shrugs.

~

Barry holds the blood sample carefully in his hand, he has a feeling that he will find something similar to what was in Taako’s blood last cycle. 

But Davenport seems to be having it much worse. 

Before he can make it to the lab, Taako intercepts him. It’s still strange, seeing him as he is now, fully crystallized, it’s hard to tell what his expressions are now. His ear’s positions being the only tell. The shape of his eyes, though, makes it hard to understand. It’s only until he hears the tone of his voice is when he knows.

“Is he okay?” He asks, worry obvious in his voice. “It's the light and not some shitty disease?”

“He’s doing fine, and yes. It’s The Light.” He holds back the part of it where it’s the only thing that’s sustaining their captain and keeping him alive as he bleeds out. 

The crystallized being visibly relaxed a bit, “thank gods.” 

“Do you want to go see him?”

“Maybe- maybe later.” He says, sounding slightly uncomfortable.

Barry nods and gives him a thumbs-up as Taako walks past him.

Once Barry gets inside the lab, he carefully pulls out a microscope off the shelf. Taking a slide and puts the blood sample on it.

Though, before he can get started, both Lup and Lucretia find him, both wearing similar expressions of worry.

“He’s okay, right?” Lup asks, being the one who found him, on the ground, in a puddle of his own blood as the ship started its deadly descent. It’s understandable.

“Yeah. he’s… he’s doing all right. Though, the light is basically the only thing that’s keeping him alive right now. I was just about to look at his blood to see if that will help like it did with Taako.” 

Lucretia’s shoulders loosen, but she still looks anxious over the prospect that their captain should be dead at the moment. “What’d Merle call you in for?” she asks as she pulls out the stool next to him, wincing when it scrapes against the metal floor. 

“Just to take a look at something,” he places the slide onto the thing, and clamps it down, “there was something up with his eyes he wanted my opinion on.”

“Oh?” Lup says, raising an eyebrow and leans against the table instead.

“Yeah, there’s something that looks like circuitry running through the corneas or some shit. He might be something mechanical.” 

“Gods, then why have him suffer like that?”

“I wish I knew. But maybe it's because The Light is trying to get all organic material out of him.”

“By literally having him bleed to death?” 

“I think it's slowly replacing the organic material with mechanical stuff.” Lucretia says, “which isn’t much better, to be honest.” 

Barry grimaces, “it’s really not.” he then looks through the eyepiece and focuses the sample he has. But it's kinda hard to really focus when both of his girlfriends are just staring at him. Waiting. 

But eventually, he finds something. The little sparkles of the light are just barely there. Mainly because it’s trying to get rid of the blood to make room for everything else.

“What d'you find Bear?” Lup asks, leaning on his shoulder.

“I found traces the light, but I don’t see much else. Want to see if you can find anything?” he offers, getting out of the stool so she can sit. 

After a moment, she hums, “it kinda looks like there are traces of black, like oil or something. But yeah, I don’t see much else either.” 

Lucretia takes a look through it next and nods, scribbles something down into her journal, “I think this is worse than what Taako went through.” she mumbles. 

“Really seems like it, yeah.”

“Taako’s sucked ass, but davenports? He’s poking death with a sharp stick against his will.” Lup scoffs, making Lucretia giggle, “what?” 

“That’s an interesting way to put it, but you’re right.” 

“How else am I supposed to put it then?” 

Barry smiles, he’s still not sure how he fits within the dynamic the two of them already had established before Barry was invited into the mix, but he loves them both with all of his heart. They love him too. “Do you have any dumb metaphors or something for Davenport’s situation, bear?” Lup asks, pulling him out of his thoughts. 

“Uh,” he says off guard, terrible at coming up with these type of things on the spot.

“Don’t pressure him, he doesn’t have to have one.” Lucretia smiles and places a soft kiss on his lips, “we should probably share the news with Merle and Dav. Just so they can know?”

“Yeah, maybe that’s a good idea, but we didn’t really find much, only confirmed what we already knew.”

“That the light was behind it, and the small traces of what we think is oil.”

Barry nods, “let me clean up here first,” he says and unhooks the slide with the sample, puts it in the proper disposal area, unplugs the microscope and wraps the cord around the base, places it back onto the shelf.

To say that he isn’t afraid is a lie. He’s been afraid of his own fate since the mission started. With the light suddenly coming in and affecting Taako’s recorded form and now davenports, who's to say that he isn’t next? Fate seems to be out of their hands. It never was in the first place. But now it seems even more so. What does the light want to do with them? Why is it doing this? He so desperately wants to know and hates being without answers. 

The whole crew wants answers.

He never had the chance to ask Taako what the light was even telling him as the crystal was spreading over his body. It was too close to the end of the cycle to even consider asking. But he has that opportunity now. 

“You okay, Barry?” Lup asks, a look of worry on her face. 

“I’m afraid,” he says, truthfully. “Of… what will happen to all of us.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i swear if any of u make an i dont feel so good joke i will steal ur kneecaps while u sleep
> 
> follow my tumblr! its keplered!


	6. Contention

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taako has some issues he needs to work out. Barry finds him. Taako visits Davenport.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> posting a day early bc tomorrow is family day at my college! so ill be very busy!
> 
> another thing, i am going on hiatus with this fic for the month of november, im running out of backlog!! college has been keeping me busy lol and its also nano! so im using this as an opportunity to get more backlog done, so i apologize for that but i feel like its needed.
> 
> <3

Taako’s been avoiding the infirmary where Davenport currently lays, dying, but not. Stuck alive with The Light sustaining him. He has it worse than he did. He should visit him, but he honestly can’t bring himself too. For that, the crystallized elf has no idea what to say. All he can think of to say are shitty sympathetic excuses for words. 

He isn’t all that surprised when Barry finds him, sitting out on the deck. 

“Hey.” his bluejeans clad brother says, sparing a glance. “He’s doing a bit better. But not by much.” 

He hums, good to know. 

“I have a question.” 

“Shoot.” 

“What was The Light telling you while you were transforming?” 

He blinks, okay, he wasn’t entirely expecting that. “Well, it told me a lot of things.”

“Like what? You’re going to have to be more specific.” Barry presses

If he could roll his eyes he would. He just thinks of his old flesh self doing it

“Was that rolling your eyes?” Barry asks, making Taako give him the best-surprised look that he can make.

“Uh, yes? How?” 

“Well, the glow of your eyes kinda shifted in a way similar to one rolling their eyes.”

“Oh. well, uh back to what the light told me. I guess.” he waves his hand in a dismissing motion. “It told me I was safe. That everything is fine. I’m pretty sure I told you guys that one before.” 

Barry nods, “I remember that.” 

“It told me to respect Davenport when I told him to get off my dick, when I was out on the deck that one night before everything went down deeper into hell for me.” he makes a noise akin to a chuckle, “honestly, it told me repeatedly that this is for my good, it's protecting me. That it’s sorry for having to do this.” 

“Huh,” Barry thinks for a moment before responding, “Is that all? Just reassurances?”

“I tried to ask why. But it never answered, only dodged the question. I don’t know what else to tell you. Sorry. You’ll have to ask Davenport what it’s telling him.” truth be told, he doesn’t remember what else it told him. 

The two sit in silence for a second before Barry speaks up again, “I like your scarf.” 

“Thanks, it's the only thing I can wear besides my hat, so I don’t appear naked.” 

He chuckles, “I guess so. If I had any scarves would you want any?” 

“I swear to any god who will hear me yell if you give my any jarves I will beat you up.” Taako threatens.

“Luckily, I don’t.” he laughs, raising his hands in mock surrender. “But, how have you been doing? Now that-“

“I’m a dude made out of crystal?” He interrupts, slightly snappy, “its been… fine? It really fucking sucks that I can’t kiss my boyfriend or feel him at all, really.”

He sees Barry frown out of the corner of his eye, “that sounds like absolute hell.”

“It is. I’m sure I’m touch starved but I can’t tell if I am because I can’t feel much of anything to confirm it.” He sighs, ears dropping. “I mean, it’d be nice to be able to feel everyone, but I think it also might be weird. I don’t have any nerves, I don’t think.”

“Oh yeah, that’d be gross but also fascinating if you got damaged and like, started bleeding..” The human man says, “though, with what you said that The Light turned you into that for ‘your own good’” he says making air quotes, “it wouldn’t make it a shell, also considering since you’re semitransparent.”

“Barold, did you just hypothetically compare me to a turtle?”

“Uh- I didn’t mean to? But yes? If it were like that, you would be able to feel. But you can't. So you are not a turtle.” 

“Damn right I’m not, I’m a beautiful creature.”

“Turtles can be beautiful,” Barry suggests, with a shrug.

“The ones with the really weird noses? Horrifying.” Taako wishes he could show his emotions a lot better in this form. In his mind, he is smiling.

“Oh yeah, those are spawns of fantasy satan right there. Haven’t seen very many but Merle probably knows about them.”

“Of course he would.” 

The two sit in silence for a while and Taako lays down onto his back and stares up at the sky. It reminds him of home. Now that everything is a varying shade of purple, he misses it even more. Even though his life was rough, he still loved the sunsets. He remembers the last time he saw both of them set, bathing the world in brilliant blues and pinks. The day before they left for their mission.

It was a miracle that both he and Lup got accepted into this mission and he’s grateful for that. But was it even worth it? If they’re all just going to end up all transforming into something against their will? He guesses he can understand why, so they don’t die as easily? But why start 50 years into this damn mission? Did The Light want to make sure they were all bonded and boning just to fuck them over?

To be honest, it made him angry. He can't feel the touch of his boyfriend any more. He can't feel the comforting warmth his sister radiates. He can't feel the soft fabric of his bed, the textures of his hat and scarves. Nothing. 

He lets out a noise that would be something like a sigh if he could breathe at all.

“Taako? You good?” Barry asks, pulling him out his thoughts again.

“I’m fucking pissed.” He says plainly, “because why did The Light decide to do this 50 years in? Was it waiting for all of our bonds to be strengthened fully? Because now I can’t feel anything, I can't feel my boyfriend I can’t feel how soft my bed is anymore. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. It’s pissing me off. I just want to feel something again. But I can’t”

“Because you’re made of crystal now,” Barry says, a look of sympathy on his face. Something that he didn’t want. “I get it. I’d be pissed too.”

Does he get it? No. But Taako appreciates the effort of Barry attempting to sympathize with him. Even though it doesn’t make him feel better at all.

“Yeah.” He says bitterly, maybe he should visit Davenport. He’s the only one who understands what the captain is going through, in a way. “I’m going to visit Davenport.” He gets up without even looking back at Barry.

~ 

Davenport has been losing less and less blood now, but he thinks that’s because he’s lost all of it already. He’s just in a lot of pain right now. His joints are stiff, making moving hard. As if he was doing much moving recently, anyway. He’s sure that he’s now turning into whatever the light is turning into, some form of a robot?

The gnome was a little surprised when Taako made his way inside the infirmary, his expression - or lack thereof - was hard to read. He’s the only one who knows what he’s going through, the only one so far who knows how it feels to be turning into something that isn’t you against your will. 

“Stuck in here, huh?” he says aloud, startling Merle who was half asleep. 

“Well, I have no choice. I can’t really move that well. Everything hurts like hell.” he says, squinting through all the information his vision is giving him.

“In my experience, moving made it worse,” he says, fully coming into the room and leans against the edge of the bed. “So what’s up with you? What was up with the passing out in the pile of your own blood thing?” 

“The light was getting rid of all the organic material in my body, so to speak. Pretty sure I’m turning into a robot.” 

_‘Yes, that is what you will be.’_ The Light confirms, a little blip in the corner of his eye.

“Yeah, that’s what the trio confirmed. As grisly as that is.” Merle adds. 

“Well, that’s fun. Now, uh, I don’t remember what the light had told me while I was transforming, just reassurances that I was fine and all that shit.” he pauses, ears standing straight up, “now what’s it telling you?” 

_‘Only what you need to know.’_ The little blip says, _‘I had said nothing different to him that I’m not telling you.’_

“I- it’s. It just said only what I need to know,” he says with a deep frown, he doesn’t add that last part. As it was only directed to him. 

“What do you mean you don’t remember?” Merle asks, squinting at the crystal being. 

Taako is silent, doesn’t speak for what feels like a while. “I don’t know. It was there one day, and then at the end of the cycle, it was gone. The last thing it said was ‘good luck’.” he says, sounding conflicted. “I shouldn’t have brought this up. It’s just that Barry asked me about it and- ugh.” he sounds frustrated now. “I don’t want to be like this anymore!” he yells.

“We don’t have a choice. At least you won’t be the only one now.” Davenport says, trying to sound reassuring.

“I know.” he huffs, sort of. “We’re not going to get any answers soon as to why. So let’s just drop it for now.” the gnome knows that the elf had more to say, but he doesn’t push. If you push Taako, he’ll only close up. “Hey, Merle? How about I stay with him for a while? You go get your rest.” he offers instead.

Merle smiles, “thank you, let me know if there’s anything huge going on. I’d- I’d like to know.” 

Taako nods, “sure,” and waves him out the door after Merle places a kiss on the top of Davenports head.

“It used to be hard reading your emotions when you were an elf earlier on, but now it’s even harder now that you don’t have any way to express your emotions.”

He hums, “yeah, I feel like I’m doing them, but there’s no way to tell. I think Magnus wanted to make a chart, somehow.”

The gnome laughs, the aching in his limbs subsides a bit. “So what have you been doing?”

“Been talking and hanging out with fisher more, sometimes with Magnus, sometimes without.” the crystallized elf sits down on the stool, “practicing magic, still adjusting to this form. Everything is a fucking shade of purple. I used to like the color but fuck that shit.” some of that was a lie

Davenport hums in thought, “how-how are things with you and Magnus, you don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to.”

Taakos ears drop a bit, “going all right. I guess, we're getting through it.” he lies, he hasn’t been talking to anyone

This makes Davenport wonder what his relationship with Merle will turn out once he fully transforms. If he will be able to show his affection without having to worry about whether if he will stab him on accident. Though maybe the stabbing thing is a Taako exclusive.

Only time will tell he presumes. 

Will he even be able to feel emotions? Surely The Light will be merciful enough to leave him them.

_‘Why would I take your emotions away? That’s ridiculous.'_ The Light says in the back of his mind, he had temporarily forgotten it was there. Listening to his thoughts. 

It makes him shiver, how could the light get inside of his head like that? How could the light do this to him and Taako? Why is it doing it to them? That’s what he’s wondering. He knows, though, that he will never get a straight answer to that question. 

_‘Are you sure? Are you sure you will never get an answer?’_ The Light says cheekily, edging him on. 

“You okay Dav?” Taako asks, concern in his voice. Though no facial expression to confirm. “You kinda blanked out there for a second.”

“Yeah. I’m fine. I was just thinking about some things.”

Taako hums and doesn’t pry, and takes to messing with the end of his scarf, bathing the room in silence once more.

This makes Davenport glad. The elf hasn’t been himself since he had turned, avoiding most forms of conversation, avoiding his sister. But for him to come to Davenport and just talk to him? It feels good. 

There’s something in his mind telling him to make Taako and Lup talk it out, but that rarely ever works. You can't force Taako to talk about something if he doesn’t want to. He will only shy away. 

The gnome can tell that he so desperately wants to talk to his sister, but there’s something holding him back. Does he not know what to say? It’s concerning. 

This was even more apparent before they had found the light this cycle.

Especially with the twins, there was a void of silence looming over them, even though there was conversation and noise in the room. Purely from the absence of the banter that belonged to Taako and Lup. Almost as if one of them had died that cycle.

Davenport knows that nothing is - and won’t ever be - the same as it was before anymore. Maybe he had felt like he was alone, the first and only one of them to be transformed at that time. With no one to understand what he’s going through.

“Taako?” the gnome speaks up, breaking the silence that had fallen between them. “This might be a weird question.”

“Shoot, my man,” he says, ears sticking straight up.

“Are you- are you relieved to know that you aren’t the only one anymore? To be turned into something I mean?” 

He takes a while to answer; he assumes that his question caught him off guard and surprised him. “Yeah… a little. I know that I’m not alone now, so that’s cool, I guess” he shrugs.

That makes Davenport smile. there’s a little indicator in the corner of his vision that says Taako feels a bit more at ease. Maybe he can use this to know how the crystallized elf is feeling now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> graduation was so good, id let rainer run me over with her wheelchair. i was also listening to reunion tour a while back and when magnus said he couldnt feel anything and all of that. it was an exact parallel to taako saying it here and i was like. oh shit
> 
> see u in a month
> 
> follow my tumblr! keplered!

**Author's Note:**

> orange justices yeet
> 
> im keplered on tumblr come follow me!


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